This invention relates to telecommunications switching and, in particular, to wireless switching systems.
A problem in the installing, provisioning, and deploying of in-building or campus personal communications systems (PCS) is the small physical size of the cells provided by the base stations. This is a problem because as an individual walks through a building with their wireless handset, the wireless handset is continuously re-registering on different base stations as it loses contacts with the previous base station. Such movements cause a large amount of traffic for the base stations as well as for the central controller that is providing overall control and switching for the wireless system. Since the central controller must be informed on which base station each wireless handset is registered, there is an advantage in the central controller knowing the exact base station on which a wireless handset is registered. When an incoming call is received for the handset, the wireless system controller can immediately set up the call via the base station to the wireless handset. If the wireless system controller simply knows that the wireless handset is registered on one of the base stations in the wireless system, then, the wireless system controller must attempt to set up the incoming call via all the base stations.
Within the prior art these problems have been resolved by the utilization of logical coverage areas. Base stations are grouped into logical coverage areas, and the wireless system controller is only informed that a wireless handset is registered on a base station within a particular logical coverage area. When an incoming call is received for the wireless handset, the wireless system controller only attempts to establish a connection to the wireless handset through the base stations that make up the logical coverage area of the wireless handset.
Within a logical coverage area, if a wireless handset moves from one base station to another, the wireless handset does not re-register on the other base station since it is in the same logical coverage area. This greatly reduces the number of re-registrations and assists in the amount of work that must be done to route incoming calls to a wireless handset. However, when a wireless handset moves to a new logical coverage area, the wireless handset must re-register on a base station in the new logical coverage area. If during re-deployment of base stations within a wireless switching system, a base station is moved from one logical coverage area to another logical coverage area, all of the wireless handsets registered on the base station must re-register so that the wireless system controller is informed that the wireless handsets are now part of the new logical coverage area.
The foregoing problems are solved, and a technical advance is achieved, by an apparatus and method for use in a wireless switching system in which base stations dynamically re-arrange logical coverage areas with the apparatus and method providing that when a base station enters a new logical coverage area the wireless handsets registered on the base station do not have to report individually this change in logical coverage areas to a wireless switching system controlling the wireless switching system. The base station performing the transfer from one logical coverage area to another logical coverage area informs the wireless switching system controller of the change in logical coverage areas both for the base station itself and for each of the wireless handsets registered on the base station. The base station informs the wireless handsets that the logical coverage area is being changed and informs the wireless handsets that they do not have to re-register. Advantageously, the reporting by the base station greatly reduces the operations that are required to be performed when the base station moves from one logical coverage area to another logical coverage area.